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we are adding a covered porch-partially screened to our georgia coastal cottage.One builder says do not use tongue and groove(can't breathe)and other says no problem.We will use affordable cypress and can have it milled t&g.We will paint it.Please help solve this debate.We just happen to like t&g.Thanks!

2- Roof deck? (Under the shingles or whatever, of course, and not the water-shedding material itself)

3- Siding? (If so, do you intend to orient that vertically or horizontally?)

By "affordable" cypress.....do you mean new-growth heart-wood stock? (as opposed to old-growth stock that's been recovered from a river bottom or elsewhere) Or that the "affordable" product will contain sapwood?

Yes, t&g is fine for a porch floor.....IF......the floor is appropriately sloped, the material is correctly installed and you're using an appropriate material. The latter is the tough part these days.

Those old porches were frequently decked with old-growth douglas fir stock......and that stuff is long gone now. You can still buy t&g doug-fir flooring, but it isn't old-growth and so isn't nearly as rot resistant or as dimensionally stable. And fir can be a bit more difficult when it comes to getting paint to adhere long-term.

You can also buy treated stock in t&g for porch floors. But you'll likely incur the same paint adhesion problems as with dough-fir. It can be done, but the paint probably won't last quite as long as you'd like. IOW, more maintenance.